she remembers everything
by stormcages
Summary: Mels forgot. Rory and River remembered.


Rory watched Mels scribble and Amy color with such enthusiasm it almost gave him pause. He couldn't let her see, though, so he put his tongue between his teeth and continued his masterpiece. Amy would be drawing the Raggedy Doctor so famous he got capital letters. Rory was always charged with drawing the police box (which Amy would always call his "p'lice box" and it would cause Rory's heart to skip half a beat).

Once, Amy had asked Mels to draw the Raggedy Doctor. Mels had looked up and looked so confused that Amy had dropped the suggestion almost immediately, picking up her pencil to sketch the face she'd drawn half a million times before. Mels went back to scribbling.

Sometimes they played together. Sometimes they played parallel.

Mels always scribbled and they were never allowed to see. By fourth grade, they'd accepted this fact but it never stopped Amy from trying to peek every so often. Mels always caught her.

Rory finished the police box and showed it to Amy for approval. She nodded and took the paper from him (seven centimeters of distance between their hands). Amy gathered up her drawing and left to go shove the drawings in her room. Mels scribbled. Rory spun the pencil in his hand and watched.

Mels suddenly dropped the red crayon and let it fall to the table with a clack. Rory didn't say anything as Mels folded up the paper and shoved it messily into a pocket as she bounded after Amy.

After half an hour, Rory followed them and found them giggling and tossing one of Rory's better police boxes around. He shouted with glee and tried to join in the game of catch, but they never tossed it to him. He hopped back and forth, trying to snatch it from the air, but he missed every time. Finally, Mels threw such a bad throw it had to have been on purpose but Rory grabbed the box and clutched it to his chest like a prize, his breathing heavy. Amy stuck out her hand, waiting for Rory to return it. Instead, he grinned and ran out the door, announcing that he was the Raggedy Doctor. Amy laughed and told him otherwise and Mels followed behind, her smile weaker than before.

They ended up in the grass of Amy's front yard, the chain of the swing still squeaking as they giggled. The box ended up in Amy's arms and when Amy's aunt called her in for supper, she waved at her friends happily. Mels waved back and walked with Rory back to her house.

Those walks were always quiet. Rory and Mels felt like a mismatch, like a puzzle where the colors matched but the piece was cut wrong.

"Night, Mels," Rory called as they separated. Mels nodded and began to run back to her house, a house Rory had never seen. Just as Rory was about to make the ascent to his porch, he stopped when he saw a piece of yellow paper on the ground. Walking over, he picked it up and unfolded it.

All the red words. Only one red word: remember. Remember, scribbled forty times over in red crayon. Sometimes the word faded into a mere shadow of itself. Sometimes, the wax dripped like blood as it ran down the page.

It felt like he'd read her diary. This was private, this was what Mels didn't let them see.

But remember what?

Rory folded the paper back and slipped it into his pocket, his mouth a hard line. Whatever it was, he decided, he didn't like it.

The next day, when Mels came to school, her backpack missing a strap and her hair disheveled, Rory looked up from his drawing and said, "I'm glad you're here."

Mels smiled.

"Me too."

Later, when River had disappeared with a flash and the sound of a whip cracking, Rory found her diary sitting on the bed. The bedroom had been set up for when River visited, which had become more often recently. He paused before gingerly picking up the bright blue diary. He smoothed the cover over and moved it over to the desk before he noticed the lose white paper poking out from the top. He pulled it out.

"Read me."

Rory fumbled with the pages but managed to find one. And so he read. And then he read another. And another.

Amy found him an hour later with tears in his eyes and the book closed on the floor. She sat next to him, puzzled. Rory just looked at her and said, his voice wavering and cracking, "She remembers everything."


End file.
